SPAM - Well I've finally had enough. Some days more than 80% of my incoming email is SPAM - and it's not even interesting SPAM. I installed SpamKiller yesterday.
I am a great fan of junk mail. As a kid I would return any coupon, check any box, enter any competition, and sign up for any bank account - all because I knew I would receive mail [and plastic cards from the bank!
The daily delivery of treasure from around the country would intrigue my parents, enjealous [if there is such a word] my siblings and amuse my friends. But I didn't care - I was receiving the mail! Still today I treasure the junk mail coming to my door [and my PO box].
In the past I would always open the mail immediately. Getting off the bus from school, I would collect the mail and open it on the way up to the house. I couldn't wait to see what was inside. Why I even treasured the BoysTown lottery mailings. I am ashamed to admit it, but there are times now when I am too busy to attend to the junk mail right away - sometimes I will keep it for later. But sometimes I just chuck it in the bin.
GASP.
That's right - unopened. I did it yesterday - threw away the FileMaker Pro newsletter - and I regret it today. I knew there was a reason that it was sent to me...and I've lost my chance, cause it's now in the Blue Mountains landfill [which, incidentally is exclusively the domain of trash from the residents of the great City of the Blue Mountains].
Every time I throw away an unopened envelope I feel shame, guilt and mostly sadness. In a better I time I would have the time and inclination to read each offer with the careful consideration it deserves.
So - what of SPAM?
When I first joined the internet, way back at the start of time, I signed up for every list I could find - that was even remotely of interest.
I very quickly learned to discriminate my tastes.
Nowadays, I am party to only one list. And I feel sad at that. But that doesn't mean I don't get volumes of email each day - I do - and it's mostly SPAM.
I used to enjoy the SPAM - kind of like getting the junk mail - but as it became more voluminous, and more importantly for me, more repetitive, I finally screamed "E-N-O-U-G-H-!-!-!-!-!" and began to filter each offending piece of SPAM into a SPAM folder, by manually creating filters in Eudora.
That lasted about seven items. What a dumb idea. Then I installed SpamKiller. Some poor person sat and created all those filters already - so I don't have to, the only thing is they didn't integrate it into Eudora.
This means that I have SpamKiller constantly running in the background checking for mail at regular, user controlled intervals [thanks Jonathon]. SpamKiller then alerts me when mail arrives, and -- at the moment anyway -- I preview the email in SpamKiller. If I need to respond straight away I then have to go into Eudora, manually download the mail and reply.
If I don't have to respond immediately I can just download the email at some later point in time. The miserable thing is - when I do download the email, it's like second hand news. The excitement's gone.
Sigh.
What would be really cool, is SpamKiller integrated entirely into Eudora. Any takers?
7:04:28 AM 
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